16 lucky feet

The four are at last all friends, at least when they're out in the yard.

Indoors, Lily is still being a bit of a bully, but I'm no longer worried for anyone's safety, so we're letting everyone mingle in the living room and just breaking things up when the scuffles get too heated.

They're such a sweet heap of softness and ears when they're all together like that.

Love, J

Uncomfortable

I adore him, but this is uncomfortable to watch:

Love, J

So very gleeful

I've probably posted more than my fair share of Glee trailers, but I have to say I cannot WAIT for tonight's episode:



Yay for more episodes that show off Heather Morris dancing!

Love, J

Getting Cozy

Normally I am not someone who enjoys making things from kits.

In fact, I sort of hate it.

I like to have more control over the finished product.

Kits come with too many rules. And everyone's results look too much the same.

But Ms. Alicia has been dangling the most lovely ornament kits in front of me for three years now. Something about embroidery on felt just really sends me, and I love her designs so much. I don't mind at all if my ornaments wind up looking just like the ones in the pictures, because those are exactly the ornaments I want.

So I may just have to take the plunge into the land of crafting-by-kit.

My plan is to make one of these kits each year with G. I'll use the ornaments for a while, and then give the whole set to her when she's grown and has her own tree.

Plus, I for sure am overdue for patronizing Alicia, as hers was the first blog I followed and adored. Her cheery, pretty posts carried me through three gloomy law school winters. So much so that even now when it's blustery out or I'm feeling unwell, the hubs tells me to get to the couch with my slippers, tea, and crochet and, "You know, get all Posie gets Cozy."

Love, J

Stockpiling

3 pumpkins (not counting the one that's already soup)

19 acorn squash (and counting)

Looooots of tomatoes - frozen whole, as chili, and as tomato soup

Kind of loving this. And I'm having big fun planning for next year. The hubs says he'll build me a hoop house, if I can find a mutually agreeable place for it. Very exciting!

Love, J

What I've been making

Besides the batches of soup I've been slow-cooking using the massive tomato harvest we pull in every few days, I haven't been making much of anything except money the past two months. Not a lot of money, but enough to start a dent in my student loans, which feels very good. At least state school tuition is kind. Can you imagine if Stanford had accepted my application?!

Anyhow, the holiday season upon us.* And with colder weather comes all sorts of reasons to make a lot of great stuff. Gifts, food, parties. Lots of big times await, my friends. And I have every intent to go BIG this year, since last year I was in such a study-fog and felt like I was robbed of the whole season. After I took the bar in February, I even considered going home and pulling out Christmas movies, so I could catch up and get my fill of the magic. In the end, they stayed put in their red and green boxes in the basement, which means I have two year's worth of energy and holiday joy to expend in the next few months!

Love, J

* My "holiday season" officially kicks off whenever I choose my Halloween costume, which I did just the other day. This year: ninja.**

** This choice is always subject to change, if something better comes along.

Bunny Bread

This is Bread.


He's a handsome little guy. Remember when we first fostered his family? He was about the size that his head is now. Bread was the one baby we kept from that litter, along with his mom Sarah.

So now we have:

1. Lily
2. Vinny
3. Sarah
4. Bread

"Bread" is a weird name.

It started as "Baby Red," because he's got the same soft red fur on the back of his neck that earned Lily her nickname of "Red."

Then it became "B. Red," and then "Bread."


Even "Baby Red" was sort of lazy of us, but we had 7 new rabbits to name at the time and we didn't really care that much what they were called.

But he smells all warm and soft and comforting, just like fresh-baked bread, so maybe we knew what we were doing...


Love, J

I thought he was photographing the garden

And he did, a little.

But he also was mocking me, just a little bit.



Keep laughing, man, and I may have to disappear your new favorite CD.

Love, J

Movie night

Indiana Jones

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Movie candy & Popcorn

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Lots o' cool people

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Brisk fall evening

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Love, J

Oprah, I'd like my prize car to be red, please

You know how attorneys have a reputation for being pretty abrasive? In my experience, practicing for a few years tends to mellow them out. We are at the pinnacle of our jackass-ness when we are in law school.

Take the most competitive, type-A person you know, multiply that by 5, and add in extreme sleep-deprivation (and a smidge of any number of personality disorders), and you'll get a picture of the average law student.

Now trap that person and 600 others like her in a building together for 60+ hours a week and pit them against each other in direct competition. Tell them they need straight A's to land a salary capable of taking on the mountain of debt they've been accumulating. Then only give about 10% of them A's in anything. For fun, hold extra-curricular competitions in writing and mock trials. It's just a recipe for crazy.

This being the friend pool I was fishing in, it surprised me when during law school I found a handful of really good friends. Mellow, kind people who lucked their way into and through our school, all of whom at some point realized they were probably better suited for something less cutthroat than the law, but by then were too far in to turn around.


Hubs and I were treated with an overnight visit by one of these friends, who is on his way across the country with his new wife (another very cool person), to begin work at a big, fancy firm in Chicago next month. Like, BIG and FANCY. And scary. And he knows it's scary and that makes me love him all the more.

But he will obviously kill it in his new job, because he's a rockstar. He earned his J.D. and his Masters at the same time. That means he made it through four years of law school. Three almost killed me. And then he went on to pass the IL bar exam and then take the WA bar (results pending) in under a year. And clerk for some fancy judge on the west side. See? Rockstar.


Don't worry, L. Just work for them for a little while, pocket the fists full of cash they give you, and then get out, just like you've been planning. Then come back to WA and set up shop and we'll run the coolest little boutique immigration/adoption/legal aid clinic around.

Love, J

PS ~ Just don't get so busy at work that you can't camp out for Oprah tickets with us when we come to visit, okay?

Pizza night

Love, J

G and bunnies iz so CUTE

G and I have an affinity for I Can Haz Cheezburgr.

(And who doesn't, really?)

A few summers ago, we found one we just loved. I can't track it down right now, but it was a kitten in someone's shirt pocket, and it read, "i are in your pocket, being tinyz," or something like that.

A little while later, G, hubs, and cousin and I went camping at Liberty Lake. The mosquitoes were horrible, and we went for a "hike" that turned out to be us just walking out into the woods for five minutes, and then making a mad dash back to camp because we were all getting eaten alive. I got the worst of it, and I'm also the whiniest of the four of us, so we were all losers, in the end.

The bite I really remember was right in the middle of my forehead, and despite my valiant struggle not to scratch, it grew huge. Giant. And it looked like a zit. In the morning, I was despairing over it in something reflective, while hubs and cousin taunted me and my new appendage.

And G walked up, saw what was going on, and said simply,

"Don't worry. He are on your forehead, being tinyz."

And I fell even more in love with her, the clever girl.

So:

G & Me don't eat meat

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I Can Has Cheezeburgr is the internet at it's best

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(Bunnies are Awesome) x 1,000

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This photo was clearly made with us in mind:

Picture from here
And they make t-shirts!

Love, J

Wedding toast - POST EDIT

Aunt Micky sent me this yesterday, and it is awesome. Like being in an episode of Glee.

Click the title, rather than the little arrow, to see it in full screen.



And here's some more information on the couple and their very cool wedding.

I think I need more friends in the Broadway scene.

Love, J

I shouldn't be surprised, he's a bit of a diva himself

The hubs went back the the death-shift this week. Not that he sees more dead bodies at night or anything (Or maybe he does. I don't ask about stuff like that). It's just that it feels like every round of graveyard he works shaves a year off of each of our lives, what with the never seeing each other and neither of us sleeping so well, me without him and him during the daytime.

And still, he finds ways to make me smile, even when he's not around.

This morning I drove to the Shala in the dark. It was gloomy and drizzly out, and the radio stations weren't playing anything that fit my mellow, let's-ease-into-this-rainy-day attitude. I wanted to listen to my Josh Ritter CD, so at a stoplight, I hit "eject" on the player. I assumed it would spit out a Metallica album, since the hubs is normally the only one who uses the CD player.

Only, the little disc poking out of the dashboard wasn't full of Metallica songs.

I had never seen this CD before.

It was purple.

And decorated with little butterflies.

And it had the song, "Always be my Baby," on it.

(Which, by the way, was the only title I recognized out of 15 or so songs listed on its face.)

It was Mariah Carey's greatest hits.

Thanks for the laugh, honey, it was an unexpectedly happy way to start my day.

Love, J

(PS: And if you're looking for Mariah, she's stored safely away in the Josh Ritter case. She's all yours.)